Show me the money, says King

Cambridge Times

As the region’s transportation planners canvas the community for thoughts on the new rapid transit corridor, the City of Cambridge is also taking action.
As part of the motion that was passed last June to develop rapid transit first in Kitchener-Waterloo and later in Cambridge, Region of Waterloo council agreed to provide Cambridge with $1 million per year for the next 10 years for capital projects.

Cambridge chief administrative officer Jim King said that $10 million promise hasn’t been forgotten. Senior city officials have been busy developing a plan to use the funding.

“What we are doing right now is developing a memorandum of understanding with the Region of Waterloo setting out how the money can be spent,” King said. “We want to take a report to council by July with a recommendation.”

With council’s approval, King said city staff will use the first $2 million to implement portions of the core areas parking master plan. Approximately $400,000 will be spent installing parking pay and display machines – scheduled to pay for itself within five years and then become a revenue source for the city.

King said that new source of revenue could someday pay for a $10 million parking garage in downtown Galt.

“What we want to do is prepare for the intensification needed for the LRT,” King explained. “We’ve only got one chance to do this right. If we want it, we have to prepare for it. ”

Prior to implementing a parking plan, King said the strategy will need to be “revisited” to ensure recommendations are still valid. The parking master plan was written several years ago and was, itself, parked, like several other city strategies, when implementation funding dried up.